Dr. Ben Jochannan (1918-2015)

Egyptology, Historian, Writer

Birth, Death and Early Life

Affectionately referred to as Dr Ben by his admirers, Yosef Alfredo Antonio Ben Jochannan died 3 years, 8 months and 15 days before his 100th birthday, leaving behind a plethora of controversies regarding his so-called radical religious philosophies but he also left many questions and religious food for thought and answers in his books.

Birth

So controversial is Ben Jochannan that even his birthplace is in dispute. Based on his own uncorroborated biography, Ben Jochannan was born of Jewish parentage
on December 31, 1918 in Ethiopia. His father was an Ethiopian while his mother was a Puerto Rican and they were both of the Jewish Faith It is said that this information regarding his origin has been challenged not only by others in the literary circles but also by some family members. It has also been said that evidentiary proof exists showing that he may have garnished the truth regarding his origin, however, that is yet to be made accessible to the public. Until then, one has to accept the information regarding his birth that he has provided even while being puzzled over his traditional Spanish names Alfredo and Antonio although as asserted by him, he was born in an African Country and raised in the Caribbean.
Ben-Jochannan lived a full and some would say eventful life before his passing on March 19, 2015. He had spanned two centuries, married three times, widowed three times, fathered 13 children two of which expired before him, wrote 49 books, conducted several guided tours to Egypt and stirred up the most controversies regarding not only his professional hypothesis but also his alleged, undocumented educational achievements.

Education

His whole life is plagued with controversies as even his self professed educational achievements are questionable as there is little or no documentation to support most of his stated educational milestones. He attested that he had earned several degrees from Cambridge University and other qualifications to which records are not found. Jochannan stated that he started his academic studies in Puerto Rico and that he had also studied in Brazil and Cuba. While it can be proven that he spent some time in the Caribbean, there are no documents to show that he earned any of the degrees he had adduced to; engineering and or anthropology. In actuality, practically all of Ben Jochannan educational qualifications are disputed which gave him the reputation of being a fallacious character in some circles. While it may have been possible for Ben Jochannan to have studied and gained all those qualifications, it is difficult to ignore the fact that so many institutions have “mislaid” or buried his records so deep that they cannot be located. That would have to be an international conspiracy seeing that these undocumented qualifications stressed across two continents; Europe and North America.

The University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez from which he purported to have received a Bachelor of Science degree (BsC) in engineering has no record of Jochannan ever being in attendance there. He also asserted that he had studied in Cuba, England and Spain where he achieved varying level of educational degrees. These are yet to be verified as the this information is strongly disputed by these Universities. The Cambridge University in England from which he supposedly earned two masters degrees ( MsC) have no records of him ever being enrolled there. At the University of Havana in Cuba he stated that he earned both a masters in Architectural Engineering also a doctorate (PhD) degree in Cultural Anthropology and Moorish History respectively. It is fair to assume this is true as Cuba has neither confirmed nor denied that he had attended, studied and acquired these qualifications at University of Havana. The University of Barcelona, Spain, from which he claimed to have also received a degree in Anthropology said that Jochannan never received a degree from that institution while Cambridge University repudiates this claim and further declared that there was no record of him ever attending any classes at there.
Although there are numerous inconsistencies regarding his education, his obituary stated that he had honorary PhD’s from three institutions; Marymount College and Medgar Evers College in the state of New York, also from Sojourner Douglass College in Baltimore, Maryland.

Many scholars believed that for some reasons unknown to them, Ben Jochannan falsified his records after he entered the United States sometime during the early 1940’s. After his death in 2015, The New York Times published an article pointing out various discrepancies in his self- professed academic accomplishments.
“Documents from Cornell University show Mr. Ben-Jochannan holding a doctorate from Cambridge University in England while, conversely, catalogs from Malcolm-King College list him as holding two master’s degrees from Cambridge University. According to Fred Lewsey, a communications officer at Cambridge, however, the school has no record of his ever attending, let alone earning any degree. Similarly, the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez, where he also said he had studied, has no records of his enrollment. Indeed, it appears that Mr. Ben-Jochannan consciously falsified much of his personal academic history.”

Regardless of what is truth or fiction, one cannot deny that Yosef Ben-Jochannan was a very intelligent man. His name as the author of 49 books surely can attest to his intelligence. He may have been self taught as he left 35,000 books in his library as proof that he had at least acquired some information on Ancient History.

‘People condemn me for not being an intellectual of the Ph.D. type,” Mr. Ben-Jochannan once said, reacting to questions later raised about his résumé.”

While not justifying his attestations, the above statement cleared up some of the “misunderstandings” regarding the lack of educational documentations laid claims to by Dr. Ben. It would appear that although he had obtained the knowledge to qualify for the degrees he declared to have earned, he had not formally acquired those degrees. Based on his well-equipped library and his sojourns as a tour guide the Nile Valley in Egypt , he had gained more than enough knowledge to represent himself as a “master” in some niches of history. Based on the amount of research he had done, the amount of time he spent in analysis, the number of theses he had written; when he compared and assessed his knowledge base to those of graduates he probably felt that he knew far more than those scholars with their PhD’s from the institutions that he mentioned. Regardless of whether he had home, college or university degrees, one cannot genuinely dispute the fact that Dr. Ben was a self-taught and ‘well-taught’ man!
While he used the “white man’s credential” to go “certain places,” Mr. Ben-Jochannan said, he refused to “let the white man certify” his work’ (from Contested Legacy of Dr. Ben, a Father of African Studies Sam Kestenbaum, The New York Times, March 27, 2015).
He may have attached these qualifications to his resume in order to gain access to some particular institutions and have been ostracized for doing so. These undocumented achievements may be more of his personal aspirations as there are no tangible proofs for some of his affirmations or dissertations, however the proliferation of his writings to include his books and essays substantiate the fact that he could have had those qualifications on paper as well. So far no one has come forward to explain why Dr. Ben had not obtained documented proof of his qualifications. Looking at the jobs he held, it may be assumed that Jochannan could have been experiencing financial constraints which assumed as mitigating factors why he may not have been able to attend the universities cited. Jochannan also had a family to support.

Career

On his arrival in the United States from the Caribbean in 1940, Ben Jochannan claimed to have worked as a draftsman while he continued his studies and later in 1945 he was appointed chairman of the African Studies Committee, UNESCO headquarters. Like so many of his self-acclaimed milestones, this was disputed by United Nations as there is no employment record although he stipulated that he worked at this institution from 1945 to 1970, a total of 25 years. That is indeed a very long employment record to have been misplaced. His 1950 job as a teacher of Egyptology at Malcolm-King College, Harlem is also questionable as this institute was not established until 1968. However, he did a stint at New York’s City College from 1973 to 1987 and was also a part-time professor at Cornell University. The last two positions have not been disputed. Another great achievement that is not in dispute is his writing ability of which he has 49 books to prove his proficiency as a credible historian of Ancient African History.

His obituary credits him with teaching at HARYOU-ACT in 1967; auxiliary professor in the department of Africana Studies and Research, Cornell University,1973-1987 and he also taught at Rutgers University. Jochannan made several appearances on interviewer and reporter Gilbert ‘Gil’ Noble’s weekly TV show: Like It Is, on New York City television station WABC-TV. The program concentrated fundamentally on problems being experienced by African-Americans and broadly covered Africans across the diaspora. Notwithstanding his involvement in Afrocentrism and Black Power, Dr. Ben accepted an honorary departmental position from the Israelite Rabbinical Academy at the Beth Shalom Hebrew Congregation in Brooklyn, New York. He also conducted guided tours referred to as Dr. Ben’s Alkebu-Lan Educational Tours to the Nile Valley during the 1980s. He cited the name given to his tour as an ‘ancient African name. These tours generally consists of three trips during summer with approximately 200 individuals participating. Cornel West, son of a Baptist preacher whose profile boasts a variety of intellectual achievements, also association with various prestigious universities and even film credits (The Matrix Reloaded), states that he “was blessed to study” at Jochannan’s feet.

Books

Ben Jochannan wrote 49 books, not a trivial feat under any scrutiny. Having delved deeply into Egyptology as it concerned the African people, his books predominantly focused on the Nile Valley ancient civilization and their impact on Western Civilizations. He stipulated that the Jews who originally inhabited that region were initially Africans; Ethiopians to be precise. He stated that the Semitic Jews came later and adopted the Jewish faith and customs with whom they came into contact. Dr. Ben led several guided tours to Egypt during which he not only used the 15 days to demonstrate his theories but also to learn more about the ancient Egyptian people and culture first hand, by their authentic drawings and artifacts that had been preserved for centuries.

His most notable publication is Black Man of the Nile: and His Family. First published in 1972, as can be inferred from the title, introduced readers to Dr. Ben’ research and findings regarding the inhabitants of the region around the Nile Valley encompassing East Sudan also. This is a profound and gripping expose on de facto ancient history from the Afrocentrism viewpoint compared to how it is written by Europeans. The context of this book is said to be one of the strongest written challenge to the European conceptualization of African history. It is so potent that any European historians are angered at the strong images that this book convey. How dare an African/Black man with no verifiable credentials behind his name challenge the works of notable European writers? Some challenged Dr Ben outright and accused him of distorting history. Yet, many Black scholars as Dr Amos Wilson, Dr, Chancellor Williams, et. al., have all researched and arrived at the same conclusion; Africa was the first civilization, ancient Egypt was a part of Africa, Egypt was originally populated by Black people – Africans.

Though beyond reproach to most acolytes, Mr. Ben-Jochannan was challenged publicly by classical scholars like Mary Lefkowitz, now a retired professor at Wellesley College. While Mr. Ben-Jochannan work was rooted in a desire to undo the damage done by colonial historians, Ms. Lefkowitz said, he was simply offering pseudohistory as an alternative.
“It’s a myth of conspiracy: ‘White people have taken away history and hidden the truth,’ ” Ms. Lefkowitz said. “But it’s all more complicated than that.”
Mr. Ben-Jochannan seemed unfazed by criticism.
“I don’t care whether white colleagues appreciate me as a historian or not,” he wrote once. “I’m writing for the African person all around the world.”
from Contested Legacy of Dr. Ben, a Father of African Studies Sam Kestenbaum, The New York Times, March 27, 2015.

Other notable books by Yosef Ben-Jochannan includes; Africa, Mother of Western Civilization; We the Black Jews; New Dimensions in African History; African Origins of Major Western Religions and A Chronology of the Bible: a brief history of the development of the Old and New Testaments from their African and Asian origins to their European and European-American Revisions.
African Origins Of Major Western Religions and A Chronology of the Bible are two noteworthy books for individuals who are dubious or skeptical about events as recorded by European Christians in the ‘Holy Book’. In this short manuscript of 22 pages; Jochannan list not only the versions of the Bible but also the years in which each version was printed. Jochannan and his religious colleagues must have had an epiphany in that restaurant in Queens in between sips of coffee on that fateful Wednesday, July 11, 1973 in Queens, New York. This chronology of the Bible was indeed needed by all, but particularly by those who were either confused or blindly accepted the European version of a “white” God and a “Black” devil. For more clarification on the most dominant western religions, the roles played by the Africans in their derivation, one needs to read these two books: African Origins of Major Western Religions and A Chronology of the Bible together as each supplements the other.

A Chronology of the Bible: Yosef ben-Jochannan (1973)Challenge to the Standard Version
Although it is the “KING JAMES [Authorized] VERSION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT” that most Protestant Christians use as “THE ONE, AND ONLY, TRUE BIBLE,” you MUST be reminded that it is one of the very late of the many VERSIONS of the BIBLE; and that many of the other VERSIONS since its publication in 1611 A.D. You will also notice that there were many English VERSIONS before the “KING JAMES [Authorized]VERSION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT.” Its popularity was due to the fact that the rulers of Great Britain’s military power was able to force practically everyone in their hundreds of colonies throughout the entire World to adopt the OFFICIAL BIBLE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND” as:

“THE ONE, AND ONLY, TRUE BIBLE”.

Dr. Ben contends that the very first bible (or scroll as it was then called) that was ever recorded as being written by man with regards to paying homage to a “CREATOR OF ALL MANKIND” , was that of the African People of the Nile Valley and Great Lakes Regions of Central, East and Northeast Africa.
“They were no different than the Africans we see today in the Harlems and Timbuctoos of the entire world we erroneously call: NEGROES, COLORED FOLKS” and “BLACK PEOPLE”.
The Africans originally called this version of the ‘Holy Book’, The Book of the Coming Forth By Day and Night in their native language; the Europeans interpreted the title as The Book Of The Dead. This translation was credited to Sir Ernest A. Budge, London, England 1885.
While it has always been known that King James had ordered or authorized a new version of the bible to be written and that this version was name after him, very few scholars or religious denominations aside from Rastafarians ever voiced concerns regarding the authenticity of this version of the Bible.

Dr. Ben Quotes

“Dipped in chocolate, bronzed in elegance, enameled with grace, toasted with beauty. My lord, she’s a black woman.” …
He loved and respected the African woman and found them more beautiful than any other. No explanation needed here as, he was married three times. Unfortunately, all of his wives were deceased before him.
“Without you, African mother, there would have been no us–African fathers, sons and daughters. …”
He credited African women to be the mothers of modern civilization.

Epilogue

Yosef Alfredo Antonio Ben-Jochannan may not have died a rich man in monetary terms. Regardless, he left a fortune in knowledge of the African people, their origins and impact on world civilization and culture in the legacy of his books, also, 11 of his 13 children alive to continue his legacy. For those who doubt the veracity of Ben Jochannan’s philosophies he left the following words:“Truth is a continuous examination, and Fact… always supersedes belief.”

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